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The Archeo-Pact
"More legal fiction than alliance." - General Argus Bradley, of the Aurolian Federation "Only the staggeringly impudent hypocrites of the Duchy could call bullied slaves, bandits and paid-for sellswords... allies." - Edward Armstrong, Prime Minister of the Commonwealth "Those Nerkin, I admire their enthusiasm." '- '''Supreme Warrant Officer General Isaac Reiksguard ''"The forces of order, honor, tradition and virtue, fighting nobly against profiteers and radicals." - Lord General Dercius Nharrod, Commander Supreme of the 1st Ducal Expeditionary Army and Govenor Militant of the Contested Systems The Archeo-Pact The Archeo-Pact was an alliance formed at the beginning of the Derelict War between the Imperial Grand Duchy of Far Valyrius, the Nerkin Empire, the Shadow Dawn Fleet, Gn'Mok Legions, many Drogue Collective corporations and governments, the Y'Ghul Free Cities, and the client governments of the newly conquered Contested Systems. The Pact opposed the forces of the Nemesis Concordat, an alliance between the Aurolian Federation, UNISEC, and the volunteer forces of the Commonwealth and Freestate. While it is commonly regarded as a mere political front for the Grand Duchy's imperialistic ambitions (an assessment which is to a certain extent true) the Archeo-Pact is defined by the Duchy's quite diffuse and lenient model of colonial governance: the acceptance of varied local structures of government, religious and cultural toleration, a generally fair and even lax system of taxation, generous monetary and infrastructure support from the Duchy to its allies, and comparatively humane treatment of non-human sentient beings (despite the acute humanocentrism of the Grand Duchy). Performance during the Derelict War Though the armies of the Archeo-Pact enjoyed incredible numerical superiority over those of the Nemesis Concordat, they proved on the whole to be vastly inferior to their opponents in terms of technology and tactics, and as a result the Pact spent much of the Derelict War on the defensive and eventually lost all of the Contested Systems except Vvaryl to Nemesis forces. Pact forces suffered from the Grand Duchy's refusal to commit more than one expeditionary force to the war, and the allies of the Grand Duchy long expected the great power to launch a counter offensive which (thanks to intra-Duchy feuding and Federation strategic daring) never came. In space, however, the Archeo-Pact proved itself to be more than a match for its opponents. The Nerkin 7th Fleet, the Shadow Dawn fleet, Gn'Mok Void Legion, Drogue space companies and the fearsome Duchy Navy together dominated the space lanes and gravity wells of the Contested Systems, forcing Nemesis commanders to adopt hit-and-run and blitz tactics in order to supply their ground forces or launch invasions. The Third Battle of Archangel was a decisive victory by the Archeo-Pact fleets against Nemesis space forces. Relationship with the Fifth Reich Though the Fifth Reich entered the Derelict War on the side of the Grand Duchy, the Reich refused to formally join the Archeo-Pact, because of a) the Grand Duchy's role as the official First Nation of the pact b) the alliance's nominal committment to the memory of the Golden Empire, and c) because of the pact's inclusion of alien nations and Drogue factions. While Nemesis commanders tended to casually refer to Reich forces as Archeo-Pact over the course of the war, the Reich itself was quite firm about its legal status as independently allied with the Imperial Grand Duchy of Far Valyrius. Post-War To the surprise of the Federation and its allied nations, many citizens of the Contested Systems prefered to stay with the Archeo-Pact rather than be assimilated into the Aurolian Federation, and the conclusion of the Derelict War ended with a vast emigration from newly acquired Federation territory to Vvaryl, the sole remaining Pact holding in the Contested Systems, and to the Archenar System itself. Several armies of colonial conscripts and levies, along with vast groups of civilians, fled more or less intact from the Federation advance to Duchy space, prefering neo-feudal tolerance of religious and cultural practices to what they perceived to be the militaristic/capitalistic hegemony of the Federation and UNISEC. The Archeo-Pact remains an official military alliance and economic agreement between the Grand Duchy, the Nerkin Empire, the Free Cities of Y'Ghul, the Gn'Mok Legions, several powerful Drogue factions, and the Vvaryl Barony (a vassal state of the Grand Duchy). Category:The Duchy Category:The Reich Category:Drogue